UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS BULLETIN 



Vol. XII 



Issued Weekly 
JANUARY 11,1915 



No. 19 



[Entered as second-class matter December 11, 1912, at the post office at Urbaiia, Illinois, 
under the Act of Avigust 24, 1912. | 



WHAT IS INVOLVED IN VOCATIONAL 
EDUCATION 



AN ADDRESS 

BY 

E. DAVENPORT 

Dean of the College of Agriculture and Director of 

the Agricultural Experiment Station 

University of Illinois 




PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
URBANA 



Wonograph 



?)r^ 






FOREWORD 



In order that his point of view may be clearly known and his in- 
tense belief in vocational education of the most practical kind estab- 
lished in advance, the author craves a word of introduction to say 
that he writes from the standpoint of a farmer and a teacher inter- 
ested above all else in an improved agriculture and an enriched 
country life. 

There is no kind of farm work in forest, field, or ditch that he 
has not done; not once but many times, day after day, and year 
after year, and with all kinds of people; not only as a boy but for 
ten years as a man after graduation from college. He therefore feels 
that he knows the point of view of the man who works with his hands, 
and something of his need for training, both mentally and manually. 

It is now forty years since his experience in vocational education 
began in the oldest agricultural college in America — an institution 
having no connection with any other form of education. After ten 
years of practical farming, he was called to teach in his Alma Mater, 
and for the last twenty years he has been at the head of an agricul- 
tural college and experiment station organized as integral parts of 
one of the larger state universities. 

The following treatment of the general subject of vocational edu- 
cation is therefore the result of convictions that have formed them- 
selves during these many years of experience with both extremes of 
the problem as applied to agriculture, with such observations in col- 
lateral fields as occasion has made possible. 



k 



WHAT IS INVOLVED IN VOCATIONAL 
EDUCATION^ 

Now that we have outgrown the apprentice system, the question 
of vocational preparation is fairly up. Shall it be ignored, or shall 
it be. undertaken by the schools, which, by custom and by law, have 
possession of the children? Upon this question different types of 
people have taken three diverse positions : 

1. An old-time extreme which held that the sole purpose 
of the public schools was to give a general education without 
regard to vocation, and that specialized instruction should 
not be undertaken below the college, a view that left the 
masses with no training for occupation and therefore with 
less ability and often with less inclination for lives of use- 
fulness than characterized the preceding generations before 
the nitroduction of compulsory universal education. This 
extreme view of the function of education is fortunately past 
and for present purposes may be disregarded. 
_ 2. An opposite extreme, also of long standing, chiefly 
interested in "business," holding that the vast majority of 
the people, necessarily destined for common toil, are certain 
to be made unhappy by too much education, and that the 
best way of insuring that the hewers of wood and drawers 
of water will be efficient and at the same time ''contented 
with their lot" is to establish for the masses a variety of 
distinctly technical schools whose aim shall be, above all other 
considerations, to turn out efficient workmen. Unfortunately 
this extreme is not dead, like its contemporary, but seems 
endowed with perennial life. 

3. A modern middle ground taken by the mass of educa- 
tors, farmers, bankers, labor unions, and others interested 
mainly m people and in ultimate progress rather than in 
immediate results. The advocates of this position hold that 
vocational and non-vocational education are equally impor- 
tant, whether we regard the interests of the individual, of the 
occupation, or of the public, and that in order to secure the 
highest development of individuals, of vocations, and of so- 
ciety,_ It IS necessary that every student be educated both 
vocationally and non-vocationally ; that the technical and the 
. non-technical instruction should be carried on side by side 
particularly in the secondary school; and that children of 
all classes should be held together and otherwise associated 
• ^^ inti mately as possible during the period of preparation 

^Delivered by E Davenport before the Business Section of the State Teaehers ' 
Association, Spnngfleld, Illinois, December 30, 1914. 



for different occupations and more or less conflicting careers. 
Because of all these considerations it is held that the prac- 
tical procedure is to expand the public schools by the intro- 
duction of vocational courses, thereby insuring the form of 
education best fitted for a self-governing community under- 
going rapid development. 

Plan Proposed by Illinois Educational Commission 

In general line with this modern spirit of education for a democ- 
racy, the Illinois Educational Commission some four years ago re- 
ported and recommended a definite plan of procedure for the public 
secondary schools of the state. As I know no better statement of the 
so-called unit system, I quote from the report^ certain fundamental 
propositions as follows: 

"I. That the high school completes the formal education for most 
of its students, and this fact rather than the preparation for college 
should dominate its policy. 

"II. That the high school curriculum should, therefore, distinctly 
recognize the vocational needs of the pupil, defining vocation broadly 
enough to cover all the useful activities, ranging from industry for 
the masses to literature, business and art for the few. 

"III. That at least one-fourth of the student's time in high school 
should be devoted to this vocational work, and three-fourths to non- 
vocational, upon the ground that the student, in order to make a 
useful member of society, should, for a portion of his time each day 
after reaching the high school age, become possessed of a deep sense 
of vocational consciousness demanding special training looking to his 
own activities, but that at the same time, in order to be most effective 
and rational, he should also devote the major portion of his time to 
what other men have thought and said and done, or are preparing 
to do, and to the facts of nature. 

"IV. That the instruction in vocational courses of high schools 
should be as useful for practical purposes as is that in the same sub- 
jects in schools devoted exclusively to technical training. In no other 
way can the higher phases of public education hold their own against 
the competition of the trade school and prevent its supplanting to 
an undue extent a broader system for the education of the young. 

' ' V. That therefore the typical high school should introduce into 
its curriculum at the present time at least six vocational courses cor- 
responding to the six broad avenues leading into the chief activities 
of civilized man, namely : 

"1. A course leading to the speaking and writing profes- 
sions with language, literature and history as its main sub- 
jects. 

^Eeport of the Illinois Educational Commission to the General Assembly of 
1911, pp. 49-51. 



"2. A course leading to the scientific professions, espe- 
cially medicine and surgery, and devoting its chief attention 
to biology, physics and chemistry, studies dealing with life' 
and the conditions of life. 

"3. A course leading to the profession of farming with 
special reference to the domesticated animals and plants, 
and to the soil as the sustainer of life, supported by the physi- 
cal sciences and by the principles of accounting. 

"4. A course preparing for useful and artistic construc- 
tion in the building trades and in most lines of manufacture. 
Here, manual training, mathematics, physics and art should 
hold the leading place. 

"5. A course leading to the callings of the business world, 
with commercial geography, economics, industrial history, 
commercial arithmetic, commercial law, book-keeping, stenog- 
raphy and typewriting as its most prominent features. 

''6. A course dealing with the application of science and 
of art to the affairs of the well-ordered home. Here sewing, 
cooking, food values, marketing, serving, nursing, sanitation, 
textiles, home decoration and the laws of physical, moral and 
mental development in childhood are the special studies. 

"VI. That the nature study work of the grades should lead up 
naturally to the high school, and to this end should be so conducted 
as to follow the evolution of the child and develop gradually from 
the undifferentiated study of the natural environment in the lower 
grades to a differentiation in the upper so clear as to establish in the 
mind of the pupil of the grammar grades a conception of the field 
of the various natural sciences and a well-developed vocational con- 
sciousness, the latter having its inception with the appearance of the 
economic instinct in the upper grades. By this means the child is 
prepared for an intelligent choice of his vocational course, and in this 
way can be checked, to some extent at least, the outrush from -the 
schools following the lure of vocation, and conscious only of the de- 
sire to do practical things. 

"VII. That schools be advised to ascertain whether and to what 
extent pupils are engaged in duties outside of school, and when it 
shall appear that such duties are definite and regular, then their 
value should be assessed and proper credit given the student on the 
progress of his course, particularly for work done in direct line witli 
the vocational courses of the high school, but no credit should be 
given for irregular and indefinite outside activities involving little or 
no responsibility, and developing neither knowledge, skill nor stability 
of purpose. 

"Vocational courses should be organized and taught strictly from 
the vocational point of view, with the distinct purpose of giving the 
student the disposition and something of the ability to take at once 



6 

a definite place in organized society, and to become a useful member 
of his community. 

' ' To this end the student, upon entering high school, should select 
one of these courses upon the assumption that the preliminary work 
in the grades has been successful in helping him to choose, broadly 
at least, the general nature of his vocation. 

''The choice once made should be definite and final, unless the 
student with his developing faculties discovers that he has' made a 
mistake, in which case he should be permitted to change his election 
with whatever loss of credit is necessarily involved, all upon the 
principle that one of the chief functions of the school is to enable 
the individual to find himself and to identify and come into intimate 
relations with his life work before he tries his forces in competition 
with the business world. The evidence at hand all points to the be- 
lief that this course of procedure will sensibly reduce the stream of 
incompetents going from our schools into the ranks of unskilled labor 
and largely on into the stage of discontent and the army of the un- 
employed. 

' ' The student, having selected his vocational course, should devote 
to it one-fourth of his time and energy ; that is to say, of the four high 
school studies, one should be vocational. The rest of the time should 
be as faithfully devoted to language, literature, science, history, eco- 
nomics, art, mathematics, and such other non- vocational subjects as 
are needed for the adequate mastery of the mother tongue, for in- 
telligent citizenship, for a knowledge of the world, and the due ap- 
preciation of life. It will be noted in this connection that what is 
vocational for one" group of students becomes non-vocational for an- 
other with a different purpose, and one is as important as the other 
in the making of a citizen. 

"It is unnecessary to remark that the vocational courses should 
be taught by one who is familiar with the vocation as well as the sub- 
ject-matter and the method of instruction; in other words, by a 
special teacher. That the teacher should know his subject is a funda- 
mental principle, but it is even more vital in vocational than it is in 
non- vocational instruction." 

That this report of the Commission not only announced an educa- 
tional policy but reflected the public mind is shown by the fact that 
without special legislation or outside support the plan is being rapidly 
carried out. Home economics is now taught in 137 of the high 
schools of the state and agriculture in more than 50, while business 
courses are developing freely and manual training is coming to be 
frankly understood as a preparation for craftsmanship as well as a 
special form of training for the hand. 

Besides what is being done in the secondary schools, the Cook- 
county plan shows how rapidly and how sanely these same subjects 



are being developed in the grades and the country schools, — all of 
which is strongly supported by the newly devised plans for junior 
extension work in agriculture and home economics by the federal De- 
partment of Agriculture in cooperation with the Agricultural College 
of the State University. 

Moreover, short courses in agriculture and home economics are 
coming in as a distinctive feature of the community school, and their 
numbers are increasing and their duration lengthening as rapidly as 
instructors can be found, while other special needs are being met 
wherever and whenever the public is willing to pay for them. 

There remains only to develop these technical courses into greater 
usefulness, to establish adequate instruction in the manufacturing in- 
dustries and in business, to set the science courses in order for tech- 
nical needs, and to adapt still better our literary work to non-tech- 
nical purposes, — all of which is going forward by leaps and bounds 
under an educational impulse as new as it is unique and rational, 
showing clearly that the public school of the future is not to be judged 
by the products of the schools of the last generation. 

When we remember the history of education and of industry, the 
marvel is that the public schools with all their shortcomings have done 
so well in an educational effort positively new in the world's history. 
The amazing wonder is that they have caught the vision so soon and 
that they have made so good a beginning, not only in vocational train- 
ing, but in the development of a comprehensive system of education 
specific enough to meet the needs of efficiency, and flexible enough for 
easy adaptation to the rapidly changing conditions of an ever ad- 
vancing people. 

By all accounts the people generally are beginning to realize what 
universal education in a democracy really means ; to appreciate what 
is actually involved in educating all the children of all the people for 
all the duties of a highly developed and self -directing civilization; 
and to understand that there is no short cut to success in our prob- 
lem. This is a mighty advance over anything that has gone before. 

A New System Proposed 

In the midst of this development there comes from the Commer- 
cial Club of our chief industrial and trade center a definite proposi- 
tion to establish a separate system of vocational schools, supported 
by state and local taxation and managed by boards of control having 
but nominal connection with other public-school activities. This is 
the so-called dual system based upon the theory that vocational edu- 
cation, to be effective, must be administered in special schools and 
by special teachers. While it opposes no development which the exist- 
ing public schools may attain, the writer cannot look upon the plan 
as other than a revival of the policy to provide for the masses a 



8 

special kind of training with limited cultural opportunities, the prod- 
uct of which would inevitably, if not designedly, be a superior kind 
of apprentice. 

Points Covered by the Proposed Law for Establishing a System 
OF Vocational Schools for Illinois 

The provisions of the latest accessible draft^ of the Cooley bill 
may be outlined substantially as follows : 

1. A state Commission of Vocational Education shall be created 
having no connection with other educational activities of the state 
except that the State Superintendent of Public Instruction shall be 
an ex-officio member. 

2. In all cities or villages of the state desirous of enjoying the 
benefits of the act, there shall be a local Board of Vocational Edu- 
cation having no connection with the educational system of the city 
or village except that the Superintendent of Schools of such city or 
village shall be an ex-officio member. 

3. In rural districts there shall be a township Board of Vocational 
Education having no connection with any other educational system 
except that the County Superintendent of Schools shall be an ex- 
officio member. 

4. The local Board of Vocational Education, whether in the city, 
village, or township, shall have power to establish any one or all of 
the following vocational schools, either separate or in any desired 
combination : 

"a. Vocational continuation day schools for 3^outh of both sexes 
between the ages of fourteen and eighteen years who are employed 
or are not pupils in other schools, — at which vocational schools 
such instruction shall be given as will render more efficient the 
practical work of the factory, shop, store, office or farm. Attend- 
ance at such schools shall be compulsory upon all such youth for 
240 hours in each year. 

"b. Vocational evening schools for pupils over eighteen years 
of age who are employed, at which schools such instruction shall 
" be given as will supplement and rationalize the practical experi- 
ences of the factory, shop, store, office or farm. Attendance at 
such schools shall be voluntary. 

"c. Vocational continuation day schools for apprentices, clerks 
and servants, attendance at which shall be compulsory upon all 
youth who are bound as apprentices, clerks or servants under the 

^Being unable to secure a recent draft of the new proposal, I have abstracted 
to the best of my ability from the printed plan of two years ago. This abstract 
has been submitted to the promoters for approval, or for modification until it 
should fairly represent the new proposition. I am advised that it does not com- 
pletely represent their latest plans, yet as my request for alteration was not 
complied with, I have no recourse except to use the latest material which has 
been made public, — the Cooley bill of 1912-13. 



9 

statute in such case made and provided. At these schools instruc- 
tion shall be given with a view to teaching the entire trade or 
vocation at which such apprentices, clerks, or servants are em- 
ployed, for not less than six hours per week, during the entire 
term of such apprenticeship. 

"d. Part-time schools for youth between fourteen and eighteen 
years, the pupils of which will spend alternate weeks in shop, 
factory, store or office or other place of employment and at the 
schools at which instruction shall be given with a view to sup- 
plementing and rendering effective the work of the pupils in their 
respective employments. Teachers at these schools will be re- 
quired to supplement the school work by giving practical aid and 
advice to the pupils and their employers at the respective places 
of empl6yment of such pupils. 

"e. Vocational day schools for the industrial, commercial or 
agricultural instruction and for the instruction in domestic service 
of youth between the ages of fourteen and sixteen years. At these 
schools instruction shall be given with a view to the vocational 
preparation of the youth of both sexes, who expect to commence 
industrial, commercial, agricultural or domestic service at the age 
of sixteen years, and shall include instruction to girls in women's 
trades, commerce and the household arts, and to boys in agri- 
cultural, commercial, industrial and mechanical subjects. Youth 
employed upon farms shall not be required to attend such schools, 
except during the months of November, December, January, Feb- 
ruary and jNIarch, but the technical or special teachers of subjects 
pertaining to agriculture may be employed for ten months in each 
year, of which period, five months service shall be in the schools 
and five months service on the farms in the municipality support- 
ing the school, giving lectures and demonstrations and promoting 
such other educational measures as the board shall determine to 
be for the benefit of the agricultural interests of the community. 

"f. Schools which shall provide in one institution for the in- 
struction required in any two or more of the above mentioned types 
of schools." 

5. The Board of Vocational Education shall have power to buy 
or lease sites for buildings and grounds with the concurrence of the 
city council or commissioners in the case of cities and villages, and 
without concurrence in the case of townships. 

6. In all cases the Board shall have power to erect, purchase, or 
rent buildings or rooms, employ teachers, provide equipment, expel 
pupils, and perform any act necessary to the successful conduct of 
the schools it has established. 

7. In the case of city or village organizations, the Board of Voca- 
tional Education shall certify to the city government the amount of 
money necessary for the conduct of the vocational schools it has es- 
tablished, after which the city council or the commissioners shall have 
power to levj^ a tax not to exceed an upper limit (unspecified in the 



10 

bill), which tax shall be in addition to all other taxes which such 
city or village is now or may be hereafter authorized to levy. 

8. In the case of township organization, the Board of Vocational 
Education shall have power itself to levy taxes not to exceed a cer- 
tain upper limit (unspecified in the bill), the proceeds also to con- 
stitute a "Vocational Educational Fund" in addition to all other 
educational taxes. 

9. Any city, village, or township establishing a system of voca- 
tional schools under the proposed act shall be entitled to receive from 
the state in further ''aid of such school or schools an amount equal 
to the annual sum raised by taxation by such city, village, or township 
for the support of such school or schools." 

Whatever is true as to details and revisions, the above outline ex- 
hibits the new system as presented two years ago for adoption in 
this state, and it may therefore be fairly accepted as representing the 
essentials of the plan as it lies in the minds of its promoters. It is 
the clear intent of the act to establish a publicly supported, self-gov- 
erning, and independent system of vocational education having no 
connection with other forms of education except through the ex-officio 
membership of school superintendents, state, city, or county. It is to 
be noted, too, that the obligation of the state is limited only by the 
rate of taxation permitted to the community and the number of com- 
munities that choose to avail themselves of the provisions of the act. 

The proposed plan to establish a new and separate system of voca- 
tional schools is a departure, sprung upon us in the very midst of an 
exceedingly rapid development of vocational education in the public 
schools, whose chief need now is money and qualified teachers. My 
contention is that the good work already accomplished is not to be 
abandoned or nullified and all that has been gained is not to be sacri- 
ficed by a confusion of plans and procedures, — certainly not without 
the most searching inquiry into the consequences of setting up at 
public expense, and over against the public-school system, a new and 
separate system of any kind, even so good a thing as vocational schools. 
"We are not to adopt an imported system because it is German without 
inquiring what it is doing to Germany; nor are we to adopt it be- 
cause it promises a short cut to industrial efficiency, without inquiring 
what it will do to us. 

As every proposition is to be judged by what would happen were 
it put into operation, I invite the sober consideration of the following 
five specific questions, viewed from the American standpoint: 

I. How would a separate system of vocational schools affect the 
children 1 

II. How would a separate system of vocational schools affect the 
existing public schools? 

III. How would a separate system of vocational education affect 
sociotv? 



11 

IV. What would be the financial waste of a multiple system of 
schools 1 

V. What has been the experience of the colleges in dealing with 
the same kind of problem? 

I. How Would a Separate System op Vocational Schools 

Apfect the Children? 

Under the unit system each vocational group of children is segre- 
gated only for technical courses. In all non-vocational studies, except 
for certain modifications, they receive the same quality of instruction 
as other groups. In this way all students enjoy identical privileges 
in non-technical instruction and are thrown for most of the time into 
intimate association and personal contact with individuals of all other 
groups, a condition which not only vastly increases their information 
by the indirect processes of filtration, but extends their acquaintance 
and broadens their sympathies each with the other, an important con- 
sideration when it is remembered that their after-lives will be widely 
separated. 

The dual system, on the other hand, would necessitate complete 
segregation, which would deprive the student of this advantage, as 
it would also of the highest grade of instruction in non-technical or 
humanizing subjects, for in actual practice it is hardly possible for 
the vocational school to provide as good a grade of instruction or as 
ample library facilities in literature, for example, as could be afforded 
by the cosmopolitan school. This is not only because of the additional 
■expense, but also because the best teachers avoid schools of narrow 
purpose and restricted associations. In every way the individual 
student in the separated school is bound to suffer loss, both in his 
non-technical education and in his knowledge of and sympathy with 
other occupations and the people who follow them, but with whom 
he must afterward live and do business with comfort if society is to 
be at peace with itself. 

II. How Would a Separate System of Vocational Schools 

Affect the Existing Public Schools? 

There are but two possible objects in segregating students along 
vocational lines: one is to secure competent instruction; the other 
is to create and maintain an "atmosphere" favorable to each par- 
ticular form of vocational activity. To establish a system of separate 
vocational schools, therefore, means something more than the division 
■of instruction into two classes, — the academic and the vocational. It 
means the development of a great variety of vocational schools, each 
designed and operated for a special purpose. 

The report of the Educational Commission outlined six vocational 
groups into which the normal student body of the public high school 



12 

could sort itself, and in general these groups would care for most 
situations without segregated schools. Now, if these six groups cannot 
profitably live together, upon the same campus, under the same body 
of teachers, and under the same board of control, then to be effective 
they must break up into at least six vocational schools, one for each, 
in order to create and preserve the special "atmosphere" deemed so 
necessary to success. There is nothing more in common between the 
five so-called occupational groups,^ — farming, manufacturing, science, 
business, home economics, — than there is between any one of them 
and the sixth, or the literary group ; and if they cannot all get on 
together in the same school, then the five will break apart after seces- 
sion from the sixth. By all accounts, a vocational-school system means 
one school for each vocation in every community or else a restriction 
of opportunity, and the so-called dual system is dual only in ad- 
ministration. It is, and is bound to be, multiple so far as the schools 
and the students are concerned. 

Now the public high school is a community proposition. Consider 
for a moment the effect on such a high school when this cleavage be- 
gins. The prospective farmers will go over to a farm school. Those 
who are preparing for the building trades or for manufacturing will 
movei out into a separate institution that, whatever it is, we will for 
convenience call a trade school. Those who are training for business 
will go into a commercial school. Those who are looking toward the 
scientific professions will need a school of their own. And, as none 
of these schools is fitted to train in home economics, there will need 
to be also a school for housekeepers. Yet in all these schools there 
will be serious trouble in securing a sufficient amount of suitable work 
outside the particular vocation for which the school is designed. 

Here are five separate schools drawn from the original community 
high school, and who shall say that any two of them could by com- 
bining gain any advantage which they might not have enjoyed had 
they staid where they were in the beginning? What now is left in 
the high school after the exodus ? Only those inclined to the literary 
professions, some girls who did not care to enter a professional house- 
keeping school, those who had no choice, and those who preferred to 
dodge the issue as long as possible. Fine material, this, with which 
to conduct the remnant of the public school, either as a technical 
school for literary purposes or as a school for culture, whatever that 
may mean as a distinct educational aim! 

There is still another important consideration. With each group 
of students thus drawn away from the public school goes a correspond- 
ing group of parents and taxpayers whose interests naturally follow 
the children to one or more of the new schools. How long under 
such conditions will these citizens pay taxes freely for the public high 
school, which has then become a kind of hybrid between a cheap 



13 

technical-literary school and a pro tono publico educational luxury? 
How long under conditions such as these can the public high school 
maintain itself in the average community or even in an exceptional 
community that has, and will always have, about all it can do to sup- 
port one good school? 

One of two things would happen if this plan were ever put into 
actual operation under public funds. Either it would break down or 
it would reduce the community high school, by withdrawal of students 
and support, to an academy for the well-to-do in preparation for the 
arts and science courses in college. 

III. How Would a Separate System of Vocational 
Schools Affect Society? 

Early cleavage along vocational lines means inevitable stratifica- 
tion of society of the most uncompromising kind because it is oc- 
cupational and because it is begun in childhood and fortified by edu- 
cation. Segregation of children along vocational lines for the purpose 
of education means in the last analysis a stratification based upon 
money or other inherited advantage instead of upon native ability and 
individual initiative, because some occupations lead naturally to the 
accumulation of wealth, while with others it is impossible. 

Such a stratification needs an emperor to control it. Not only is 
it incompatible with a self-governing people, but no democracy can 
endure under the inevitable strain. Most of our troubles are social 
and economic, and to base our education upon occupation without 
fostering or even permitting the closest personal association is to sov^ 
among our children the seeds of our most dangerous dissentions and 
to cultivate them day after day in the schoolroom. To do this and 
then to expect a self-governing people to live together afterward in 
peace and harmony is to sow the winds without being ready to reap 
the whirlwinds. When we follow the lead of other nations in this 
matter we must be prepared to copy their forms of government and 
to sacrifice the individual to a fixed scheme of general efficiency as 
over against personal efiiciency and culture. Perhaps that is what we 
desire and what we need, only we should act advisedly when experi- 
menting with a kind of machinery that works both ways. 

IV. What Would be the Financial Waste of a 
Multiple System of Schools? 

Without experience, a direct answer to this question is impossible ; 
but technical training is enormously expensive, and this fact is the 
chief obstacle to be overcome in its widespread introduction. To es- 
tablish independent schools along vocational lines would increase the 
difficulty because of the repeated and otherwise unnecessary duplica- 
tion of those scientific, literary, and other non-technical studies which 



14 

ought to make up a good proportion of the education of a man who 
is to be trusted with the ballot in a self-governing country. 

It would be impossible to devise a more expensive method of voca- 
tional training than the multiple system proposed. Only public taxa- 
tion could support such a scheme, and, for financial reasons if for no 
•other, either it would break down or, if it succeeded, it could be 
maintained only at the expense of the non-technical education of the 
children. It is this fact that leads us to assume that the finished 
product of such schools in actual practice would be at best a superior 
kind of apprentice. 

Perhaps, again, that is what we want. It all depends upon the 
issue, — whether we have people and progress or whether we have im- 
mediate industrial efficiency most in mind, — and the premium we are 
willing to pay for either. 

V. What has Been the Experience of Agricultural and 
Mechanical Colleges? 

Fortunately, we are not without experience in this general field 
and under thoroughly American conditions. In 1862 Congress pro- 
vided for a national system of instruction in agriculture and the me- 
chanic arts, either in separate colleges or in connection with existing 
institutions of learning. It was an experiment with which the es- 
tablished education of that day had little sympathy. In the middle 
of the last century all education was classical, and the natural sciences 
were not yet admitted into respectable academic society. With science 
knocking at closed doors, her poor relations, agricultiire and the 
mechanic arts, would have had short shrift except for the deeds to 
■certain real estate which they carried in their pockets and because 
of which they were admitted, in certain instances, to spare room in 
the basements and the attics, with the privilege of gathering such 
•crumbs as fell from the feast of learning. 

In some states the ' ' new education ' ' refused to enter the existing 
institutions upon these terms, and by arguments much the . same as 
we now hear, established colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts on 
a separate, new, and independent plan. Under the conditions ob- 
taining then, no other way was possible. I was brought up in such a 
college, and learned to cast aspersions upon the old-time classical and 
^'impractical" form of education, and at the time they were well 
deserved. Those were days of narrow views of the purposes of edu- 
cation, days when it was held desirable that the masses should remain 
comparatively ignorant in order to insure contentment. Then fol- 
lowed days of strenuous thinking along new lines and no less strenuous 
deeds in educational evolution. All honor is due to the separate 
agricultural colleges, like Michigan and Massachusetts, that blazed 



15 

the trails and opened the vistas to a new view of learning and of 
service and of manhood on the earth in spite of the educational bigotry 
of the times. 

These separate agricultural colleges did their work well, — so well 
that the universities began to call the outcasts up from the cellars 
and down from the attics and to give them good seats, not only at 
the feast, but at the council board; and today, without being invidi- 
ous, I am bound to maintain that the best agriculture, not only in 
terms of science but for practical farming purposes, and the best 
engineering for professional use, is taught, not in the separate col- 
lege as a half-century ago, but in the great state universities where 
the subject has been fully accepted and in which the technical teachers 
are given every aid and every help of the general faculty ; where the 
students who are to be farmers or engineers study under the same 
conditions and under the same instructors as those who are to be 
teachers, journalists, and business men; where the students come into 
contact with the whole range of knowledge and of human interests, 
and build up personal friendships among men of all professions. Such 
a body of men is knit together like the souls of David and Jonathan, 
and therein lies the very heart and spirit of public education in a 
•democracy. 

With this experience behind us, what is the use of trying out the 
problem again in the realm of secondary education? Why travel 
again in the name of the secondary school the same weary way it took 
the colleges a half -century to explore only to arrive at a point just 
over the hill and not so very far after all from that of their own 
departure? There is no good and sufficient justification for such a 
procedure. The contest is over. The issue is decided. Henceforth 
we go on together. 

The state university where all interests work together is the model 
for public education of all grades, and its counterpart is the cosmo- 
politan high school of the community, a thoroughly American institu- 
tion where all the children of all the people learn to do all the things 
and to meet all the duties involved in a highly civilized state. 

It is objected that the public-school teachers are neither qualified 
for nor sympathetic with vocational education. That they are, for 
the most part, trained for other teaching is true, and the other teach- 
ing is still to go on. Additional teachers trained in the vocations must 
be found, and very largely made, whether we introduce vocational 
courses or vocational schools. That the sympathies of public-school 
teachers in general are with vocational education is shown by the fact 
that no man who has gone out from the University of Illinois to teach 
agriculture in a high school has ever complained of lack of support 
on the part of his colleagues. Teachers are better agreed now upon 
the need of vocational education in our schools than upon almost any 
other educational subject. 



16 

Let the public high school, therefore, do business. Let it put in 
vocational courses, night courses, part-time courses, short courses, — 
anything which any considerable group may need. Let it expand to 
meet all the educational needs of its community ; and when the com- 
munity has done all that it can, let the school be subsidized, not de- 
stroyed, by the state and by the nation, for the children, if properly 
educated, will be citizens of the world and not of a trade. 

The Opposite View 

Nevertheless, there is a respectable minority that disagrees, some 
believing that we are not altogether honest in our protestations ; some 
that the plans we advocate are undesirable when applied to the masses ; 
and some that for secondary education they are chimerical and im- 
possible however well they may work in college, believing that what- 
ever we may accomplish in vocational education in the ordinary pub- 
lic schools, children cannot be adequately trained for industrial life 
in the same school with students and courses devoted at all seriously 
to "academic" instruction, and that if we attempt it we shall come 
short of the real needs of a busy and work-a-day world such as ours 
is bound to be. 

Now, the wise advocate does not rest his case upon his own argu- 
ments. Before he submits it to the jury he carefully examines the 
strong points in the opposite side and the weak spots in his own. 
This issue is soon to go to the people, who are the jury. It will be 
well, therefore, to regard the case from the point of view of the pro- 
moters, at least so far as possible, and afterward to confess certain 
shortcomings in the public schools not yet remedied and that afford 
talking points for the dual plan. 

Advantages of the Dual System 

Every proposition that wins a following must have something to 
commend it. The dual system is no exception, and the following ad- 
vantages are conceded without arguirient : 

1. It provides for those who, for one reason or another, have 
"left school," — a hitherto neglected class, many of whom are bread- 
winning children, and most of whom are floating about from job to 
job, fitted for nothing in particular. 

2. It extends the age for compulsory instruction to eighteen for 
all who are "employed." 

3. It provides a means by which youth needing employment may 
combine formal instruction with shop practice and some degree of 
earning power. 

4. In providing compulsory training for "all youth who are 
bound as apprentices, clerks, or servants" (see Sec. c), it revives and 



17 

improves upon the old apprentice system of bound labor in a way 
that ought to insure a very high grade of service to the employers. 
If we still had the apprentice system with us this might all be re- 
garded as a protection to the child ; but as the system of bound ser- 
vice has fallen into disuse this must be regarded as an attempt to 
revive it in the interest of a more reliable source and more skilful 
grade of child labor, — all of which is of undoubted advantage to 
"business" and to "the leisure class." The writer may be pardoned 
if he regards this as a joker in the bill. 

5. The finished product would be more immediately useful in 
business than is likely to be the output from a cosmopolitan school 
whose chief object is general as well as special efficiency at forty, 
rather than industrial efficiency at sixteen or eighteen years of age. 

6. It would pay a more immediate return on the investment both 
to business and to the craftsman. 

7. It is peculiarly adapted to win support both with business in- 
terests, with parents, and with children, because of its practical ob- 
jects and its early and direct returns. 

8. The general proposition is simpler than that of the unit system 
because it aims at meeting the demands of business rather than the 
educational needs of all classes of children. 

9. It is simpler, too, in that it aims to instruct in a single method 
of "getting a living" rather than in the complicated question of 
"how to live." 

10. The purpose of a given school being simple and direct, its 
administration is easier than that of a school whose purposes are as 
broad as the issues of life. 

Weak Points in the Public Schools as Seen Historically 
AND AS Judged by Results 

Experience and growing needs have brought to light certain omis- 
sions and shortcomings in our public-school administration, among 
which the following are most significant : 

1. The public schools were not founded for vocational instruction 
and they have been too slow in recognizing its need. 

2. They have attempted to educate all classes by means of studies 
and points of view drawn from old-time courses designed for the 
education of the governing and other privileged classes and having 
little reference to industrial life or to the personal needs of the vast 
majority of people. 

3. Not finding the education useful, many children have left 
school and many have continued only to demonstrate afterward their 
inability and often their unwillingness to pursue the common occupa- 
tions of man, showing that those who reaped the chief advantage from 
the public schools were the fortunate ones who continued on to college. 



18 

In the opinion of the writer, the present proposal is the best 
evidence of a weak spot in the public-school system, for the new plan 
would have had no followers if the public school had done its whole 
duty as it is now beginning to do it in the form known as the unit 
system. 

Special Difficulties Resting upon the Unit System 

The unit system is much more difficult of execution, and therefore 
of defense, than is a separated system, and for the following reasons : 

1. It is more complicated, for it proposes to undertake the whole 
education of all the children. 

2. It proposes to build upon the present public-school system be- 
cause of its wonderful achievements, but in doing so it must endure 
whatever criticism is due for the mistakes or shortcomings of the whole 
system during its long and tortuous history. 

3. Being on the ground and at work carrying the burden of pub- 
lic education, it shares the common lot of all active agencies of pro- 
gress in incurring criticism for whatever difficulties arise in actual 
procedure, — many of which are inherent in the situation whatever the 
system. 

The Two Plans Compared ' 

The shortcomings of the public school in its evolution into a unit 
system of education for a democracy are of the nature of details, 
mostly of omission, while the weakness of the so-called dual system is 
a fundamental error in educational ideals. 

The mistakes, the errors of judgment and of execution in the 
system that has been at work, are growing pains, and, like children's 
diseases, will pass away and be left behind, but the mistake of the 
dual plan is rooted in a wrong philosophy of life and its results would 
not pass away. 

The two systems approach vocation and vocational education from 
different if not from opposite points of view. The one, if allowed to 
proceed, will ripen into a complete system of adequate education for 
all people and for all callings; while the other at best would but 
provide a special training for those who are "bound" to service. 

The Lesson op the Hour 

The proposition to establish a new system of schools proposes noth- 
ing that cannot be as well or better done by existing schools, but it 
does point out certain imperative lines of procedure: 

1. We must find ways of teaching the vocations which will not 
only train for service but also educate the individual as much as pos- 
sible and develop the occupation as well, — a vastly more difficult un- 
dertaking than simply training for employment. 



19 

2. We must learn to teach the same subject in different ways to 
different groups of students ; for to the literary student, for example, 
language and literature are technical subjects, while to all others they 
are semi-technical or entirely non-technical. 

3. Public schools generally must introduce vocational courses par- 
alleling the non-technical instruction and do it honestly in ways that 
will really train for efficiency in occupational service. 

4. More schools must follow the lead of the few in introducing 
short courses, night schools, and the kind of education needed by every 
other class contemplated in the Cooley bill except the "bound out"' 
class, which is unAmerican. 

Unless the public schools will do all this, some such scheme as the 
Cooley bill is inevitable, because it will be necessary. 

We must all admit that the present point of view at which most, 
public-school teachers have now arrived is comparatively recent and 
quite opposite to that commonly held even a quarter of a century 
ago. We must also admit that we are only beginning to put these new 
ideas into operation, and that, relatively, the work goes slowly from 
lack of funds and qualified teachers, even though, absolutely, it is; 
going by leaps and bounds. We must freely admit that much of the 
finished product of the public schools, — ^largely turned out under old 
conditions, — is far from satisfactory in real life, a fact that has been 
better appreciated by the business world, which receives the students, 
than by teachers, who are always engaged upon a new crop and see 
but little of the final fruits of their own labors, and whose judgment 
rests mainly upon the rather artificial standards of the schools, not 
drawn from the experience of the world outside, but erected within 
as a kind of algebraic sum of convenience in teaching and ease in 
administration. 

We must all understand that in general the world demands effi- 
ciency as the income from expensive public instruction, while com- 
monly the parent, and too often the teacher, regards the school as 
somehow a means of giving the individual some sort of advantage 
whereby he may be freed from the hard conditions that of necessity 
beset the common mass of humanity. This ambition of the parent 
or the teacher easily communicates itself to the child, who goes job- 
hunting from school with the wrong attitude towards work and to- 
wards the world, which demands service and which is unwilling to 
accord favors unearned but is more likely to demand a handicap. 

That we are caught in the midst of our own reformation we must 
admit, but we insist that no procedure is or can be 100 percent per- 
fect, as advocates of the new-old plan would speedily find were it put 
into practice, and we insist that the public has been, and is, more 
blameworthy than the schools for any past delinquency in our prod- 
ucts. Until the individual parent is not only willing hut insistent tliat 



20 

Jiis own boy and Ms own girl shall he educated for usefulness and 
not for parasitism, and until lie is willing to pay for such education, 
the public schools cannot do their whole duty by the children or by 
the world they are to serve, whatever the form of organization. Our 
whole contention is this: Just because the world went to sleep and 
had bad dreams, it must not, upon awaking, proceed to smash every- 
thing that has been done during its long somnolence. 

Propositions for Agreement 

In a discussion involving action and far-reaching consequences it 
is well not only to know the ground thoroughly, but to ascertain 
clearly the points on which agreement may be reached. To this end 
the following propositions involving concessions from both sides are 
submitted for agreement: 

I. Without vocational education of the masses, the following con- 
sequences are inevitable: 

1. Each new generation assumes the burdens of the last 
without sufficient preparation ; for general knowledge is not 
necessarily specific power. 

2. The ordinary individual is unable to care for himself 
and his family as self-respecting members of society; for 
he is not prepared to engage successfully in the activities 
whereby we live. 

3. The major industries, like farming and manufacturing, 
do not develop; for their further progress is conditioned 
upon the findings of science and the practice of educated 
men. 

4. Society is not well served if its fundamental needs are 
inadequately or irregularly met ; for all necessities, like the 
food supply, should be not only ample and economical but at 
all times certain. 

5. The highest civilization does not develop ; for further 
advance rests upon the proper development of those indus- 
tries concerned with food, clothing, and shelter that inevitably 
absorb the most of the time, thought, and energy of man. 

6. The ultimate result is the development of a great mid- 
dle class existing precariously by grinding toil, a submerged 
and parasitic minority living hopelessly by its wits, and a 
small leisure class also largely parasitic, — a stratification re- 
sulting from the possession of money or other inherited ad- 
vantage rather than from education and personal initiative ; 
for the only agency of real progress is educated individual 
efficiency. 

7. A society so stratified is undemocratic and must be 
governed from without, for its elements are too diverse, its 
interests too antagonistic, and its objects too ill-defined to 
permit of government by the vote of the majority. 



■ite 



.21 

II. Any general system of vocational education, however admin- 
istered, must, to be both effective and safe, recognize and foster the 
following principles: 

1. Vocational education in order to be useful must be 
really technical in subject matter and in spirit; for its ob- 
ject 'is to enable the individual to take a useful place m 
society with reasonable promptness, efficiency, and certainty 

2. "it must be accompanied by not less than an equal 
amount of strictly non-technical instruction, the aim of which 
is to draw attention outside the man and his calling to the 
world in general and to the larger things of life ; for society 
must be something more than an aggregation of technicians 

3 The ultimate object of all education is not industrial 
efficiency but the full development of man ; for vocation is 
a means of living and not the purpose of existence. 

4 The fullest understanding and the closest cooperation 
is necessary between the forces and agencies aiming at the 
vocational education and those aiming at the non-technical 
development of the child; for without this cooperation, one 
phase or the other of the personality will remain undevel- 
oped, and the man be likely to become a burden upon the 
community if not a menace to society. _ 

5 Under this cooperation, vocational education as sucli 
must not only proceed along lines necessary to its own pur- 
poses, but it must be allowed to inject into the school system 
many processes that are new and many standards that have 
not been heretofore recognized in education ; for it assumes 
the principle that there is no general education that will 
really prepare for specific service. _ , .. 

6 The curriculum of the school is quite a ditterent matter 
from the course of study best for the particular student; 
for the one is as broad as the needs of life and the capacities 
of the school as a whole, while the other is fitted to the needs, 
capacities, and desires of an individual. _ 

7 Historically all education is technical and vocational, 
but we are now entering upon a period in which any subject, 
as chemistry, literature, or agriculture, may be vocational 
and therefore technical to one group but non-technical to 
other groups; for the influence and value of a subject is due 
not only to its content but to the manner in which it is pre- 
sented by the teacher and the spirit and purpose with which 
it is pursued by the student. , 

8. In this way most subjects may be at one time and tor 
one purpose vocational, and at another time and for another 
purpose non-technical. This means that teachers must be 
able and willing from now on to teach certain subjects, es- 
pecially language, literature, and the sciences, somewhat dif- 
ferently to different groups of students, and the student must 
be always conscious whether he is taking a given course for 
technical, semi-technical, or strictly non-technical purpose. 



22 

9. Between subjects necessary to the education of the 
various groups, no lines of academic superiority or inferi- 
ority should be established ; for who shall say whether food 
or water subserves the higher purpose? 

10. Educational readjustments with a view to vocation are 
inevitable. In this process certain old-time and intrenched 
subjects will seemingly be demoted because not universally 
required, but actually every subject is to be preserved and 
made more useful because taught with greater discrimination 
as to its purpose , for we cannot as a whole afford to lose a 
single item of knowledge any more than can the individual 
afford to study everything. 

11. This is all to cost more money than ever before, not 
only in the aggregate but in the per-capita expense; for 
technical education is more costly than non-technical. We 
shall need to husband our resources, and all waste from un- 
necessary duplication should be devoted to the enrichment 
of learning. 

12. The ultimate purposes of civilization are to be at- 
tained through personal efficiency and culture and not 
through the complete subordination of the individual to so- 
ciety, which, as such, has no entity; for society is nothing 
but the people who compose it, and its superior claims are 
nothing but the highest good of the greatest number. Upon 
no other philosophy of life can democratic institutions en- 
dure or civilization stand under universal suffrage. 

Where We Differ 

While the foregoing propositions do not cover the situation, they 
fairly surround it and broadly outline it. If we can agree on them, — 
and how can we differ much? — then the only questions on which we 
can possibly differ are these three: 

1. Do we need a new and separate system of vocational schools? 

2. Can we afford such a system, financially? 

3. Dare we establish such a system in America? 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



019 595 410 



THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS / 

THE STATE UNIVERSITY ' , 

LTrbana 
Edmukd J. James, Ph. D., LL. D., President 



THE UNIVERSITY INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING DEPARTMENTS: 

The Graduate School 

The Colleg-e of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Ancient and Modern 
Languages and Literatures ; History, Economic:" fl,nd Account- 
ancy, Political Science, Sociology; Philosophy, Psychology, 
Education; Mathematics; Astronomy; Geology; Physics; 
Chemistry; Botany, Zoology, Entomology; Physiology; Art 
and Design; Ceramics) 

The Collegfe of Engineering (Architecture ; Architectural, Civil, 
Electrical, Mechanical, Mining, Municipal and Sanitary, and 
Railway Engineering) 

The College of Agriculture (Agronomy ; Animal Husbandry ; Dairy 
Husbandry ; Horticulture and Landscape Gardening ; Veteri- 
nary Science; Agricultural Extension; Teachers' Course; 
Household Science) 

The College of Law (three years' course) 

The School of Education 

The Courses in Business (General Business; Banking; Account- 
ancy ; Railway Administration ; Insurance ; Secretarial ; Com- 
mercial Teachers 

The Course in Journalism 

The Courses in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering 

The Courses in Ceramics and Ceramic Engineering , 

The School of Railway Engineering and Administration 

The School of Music (four years' course) 

The School of Library Science (two years' course) 

The College of Medicine (in Chicago) 

The College of Dentistry (in Chicago) 

The School of Pharmacy (in Chicago ; Ph. G. and Ph. C. courses) 

The Summer Session (eight weeks) 

Experiment Stations: LF. S. Agricultural Experiment Station; En- 
gineering Experiment Station; State Laboratory of Natural 
History; State Entomologist's Office; Biological Experiment 
Station on Illinois River ; State "Water Survey ; State Geologi- 
cal Survey ; Mine Rescue Station 

The library collections contain (October 1, 1914) 328,000 volumes, 
including the library of the State Laboratory of Natural His- 
tory (8,100 volumes), the Quine Medical Library (14,000 vol- 
umes), and the library of the School of Pharmacy (2,000 vol- 
umes). 

For catalogs and information address 

THE REGISTRAR 

Tirhana^ Illinois 



23 



019 595 410 



AN EDUCATIONAL CREED 

~lr ~4- -^ Jlieve in the individual: in the child as father to 
the man, who is the agent of all progress. 

II. I believe that society has a right to demand of every 
normal man, whatever his wealth, that he shall do something 
useful, and that instruction in that duty is one of the rights 
and obligations of the public school. 

III. I believe also that every man has his own life to live 
and personality to develop, and that he has a right to in- 
struction in things that are his own. 

IV. I believe that no society can permanently govern it- 
self unless men are firmly knit together by a common stock 
of universal knowledge and of sympathy with each other's 
burdens. 

V. I believe that the highest civilization is possible only 
as each man develops within himself the best service and the 
highest ideals of which he is capable and is both free and 
willing to exercise all his faculties. 

VI. I believe that the public school, which has possession 
of all the children, is the controlling agent of progress, and 
that its policies both reflect and establish the ideals of our 
times and the limits of our attainments. 



019 595 '*i'a V" 



Hollinger Corp. 
pH8.5 



